“Kyriakides’ work on refugee resettlement and trust is some of the most innovative and creative work on Canadian resettlement being conducted now.” (Community in Crisis Group, University of Ottawa/American University of Beirut). Check out recent papers in the journals Social Forces and Canadian Ethnic Studies.

Kyriakides on You Tube:

• Christopher Kyriakides on Persons of Self Rescue
• The Dynamic of Trust in Refugee-Host Relations. Webinar for The Al-Qazzaz Foundation for Education and Development.
• See also: Kyriakides et al (Eds) Racialized Refuge. Special issue of Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees

REVIEWS OF RACE DEFACED

Race Defaced shakes up the status quo in the field of race—and social theory more broadly—delivering an exciting, forceful challenge to prominent thought. A major contribution. —Alana Lentin, University of Western Sydney

It's refreshing to see an ambitious work that steps back from the immediate cauldron of race and places it in a broader political, historical, and theoretical framework. Kyriakides and Torres offer a compelling challenge to the current orthodoxies in this bold, wide-ranging critical analysis. —Stephen Small, University of California, Berkeley

Race Defaced is an exceptional contribution to the debate about race because it does so much more than most writing on the subject. In a field where moral stances usually get in the way of thinking things through more deeply, Kyriakides and Torres have pulled together a pointedly philosophical reflection on the meaning of race. —James Heartfield, Spiked

Kyriakides and Torres urge us to dream of a different world and take a collective leap into the future. If this sounds hopelessly utopian you should read Race Defaced, because there is ample material here to give you pause for thought. —Chris Gilligen, Ethnopolitics

Race Defaced takes to the next level the critique of the system of white supremacy offered by Charles Mills in The Racial Contract, a classic of the genre. Ever a ‘hopeful subject’, one can anticipate this volume producing a new critical turn, a critical return to the classical role of philosophers, which is not simply to outline the problems of the present order, but also to provide a feasible means by which we – all of us, together – might achieve the good life. —Guy Lancaster, Plurilogue

Race Defaced is a thoroughly engaging and stimulating attempt to rethink and resituate conservative and radical orthodoxies surrounding the history and development of racism and anti-racism. [...] Following the police slayings of unarmed black men Michael Brown and Eric Garner in the U.S. in 2014 and the subsequent protests that took hold across the country, the questions and challenges the book poses for scholars on “race” and for participants within progressive social movements assumes a renewed significance . . . The authors' main contribution lies in providing a conceptual toolkit, framed within 'hope' and 'possibility,' with which to begin a movement toward an emancipatory politics." —Waqas Tufail, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

Research Interests

Current Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Fall 2024	AP/SOCI3100 3.0	A	Special Topics	LECT

Upcoming Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Winter 2025	AP/SOCI4430 3.0	M	Human Displacement & Refugees: Global	SEMR

“Kyriakides’ work on refugee resettlement and trust is some of the most innovative and creative work on Canadian resettlement being conducted now.” (Community in Crisis Group, University of Ottawa/American University of Beirut). Check out recent papers in the journals Social Forces and Canadian Ethnic Studies.

Kyriakides on You Tube:

• Christopher Kyriakides on Persons of Self Rescue
• The Dynamic of Trust in Refugee-Host Relations. Webinar for The Al-Qazzaz Foundation for Education and Development.
• See also: Kyriakides et al (Eds) Racialized Refuge. Special issue of Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees

REVIEWS OF RACE DEFACED

Race Defaced shakes up the status quo in the field of race—and social theory more broadly—delivering an exciting, forceful challenge to prominent thought. A major contribution. —Alana Lentin, University of Western Sydney

It's refreshing to see an ambitious work that steps back from the immediate cauldron of race and places it in a broader political, historical, and theoretical framework. Kyriakides and Torres offer a compelling challenge to the current orthodoxies in this bold, wide-ranging critical analysis. —Stephen Small, University of California, Berkeley

Race Defaced is an exceptional contribution to the debate about race because it does so much more than most writing on the subject. In a field where moral stances usually get in the way of thinking things through more deeply, Kyriakides and Torres have pulled together a pointedly philosophical reflection on the meaning of race. —James Heartfield, Spiked

Kyriakides and Torres urge us to dream of a different world and take a collective leap into the future. If this sounds hopelessly utopian you should read Race Defaced, because there is ample material here to give you pause for thought. —Chris Gilligen, Ethnopolitics

Race Defaced takes to the next level the critique of the system of white supremacy offered by Charles Mills in The Racial Contract, a classic of the genre. Ever a ‘hopeful subject’, one can anticipate this volume producing a new critical turn, a critical return to the classical role of philosophers, which is not simply to outline the problems of the present order, but also to provide a feasible means by which we – all of us, together – might achieve the good life. —Guy Lancaster, Plurilogue

Race Defaced is a thoroughly engaging and stimulating attempt to rethink and resituate conservative and radical orthodoxies surrounding the history and development of racism and anti-racism. [...] Following the police slayings of unarmed black men Michael Brown and Eric Garner in the U.S. in 2014 and the subsequent protests that took hold across the country, the questions and challenges the book poses for scholars on “race” and for participants within progressive social movements assumes a renewed significance . . . The authors' main contribution lies in providing a conceptual toolkit, framed within 'hope' and 'possibility,' with which to begin a movement toward an emancipatory politics." —Waqas Tufail, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

Biography

Dr Christopher Kyriakides moved to Canada in January 2016 following his successful nomination for the position of Canada Research Chair (CRC) with the Department of Sociology, Dr Kyriakides’ CRC position was subsequently renewed for a further 5 years in January 2021.

Kyriakides was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. He entered higher education at the age of 26, a first generation entrant at the University of Glasgow. He completed his undergraduate degree at the age of 29 and his PhD at 34: "there was never any expectation on the part of teachers during my primary and secondary education that I would amount to much. I didn't read a book till I was 12 yrs old and barely passed an exam at school; my high school adviser advised my parents that I should consider laying brick for a living; not that I am opposed to doing so, laying brick is pretty fundamental. It is to say that my adviser considered brick laying to be a low status occupation to which I was best suited. It was only later on, while unemployed (when I began to teach myself) that I discovered the beauty of learning denied me as a child." Consequently, as a Canada Research Chair, Kyriakides' teaching and research seeks to enhance the 'autodidact within' by stressing the importance of creative imagination in living with and breaking down structures that limit self-enhancement and positive social change.

Critical of what he sees as the amorphous category of 'the global', and the political imposition through ascriptions of identity constructs, Kyriakides is an International Sociologist, whose work stresses the importance of a close relationship between the development of theory, comparative analysis and empirically-grounded research. Kyriakides argues for a sociology of creative emancipation, and that, “problem-solving requires us to think-through the unthinkable; that we ask questions that ‘shouldn't’ be asked. We need to uncover those currently buried linkages between academe and the people whose labors lay the bricks, grow the food and stitch the clothes, without which university professors would not have the privilege of being paid to think”.

Kyriakides’ work is internationally focused on Europe, North America, the Middle East and most recently, Africa and South America, and has been funded by the European Commission, Council of Europe, United Nations, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the Research Promotion Foundation, the Canada Research Chairs Secretariat, the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Canada. Kyriakides has advised a number of governmental, NGO and community organizations including the Council of Europe Intercultural Cities Program and the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) - the largest anti-racist NGO network in the world.

Research

Drawing from Ethnic and Racial Studies (ERS) and Refugee Studies (RS) to identify racialized refuge as a discrete field of inquiry, Kyriakides’ work on racialized reception contexts internationally, stresses that a robust understanding of ‘refuge’ requires knowledge of, but cannot be limited to, the historical conditions of racisms (there are multiple and changing forms) in regional, national and local receiving contexts AND that the forms of resistance and negotiation that persons labelled ‘refugees’ adopt are specific but not limited to the lives and conditions of oppression that catalyzed their ‘forced’ exile. Creative resistance within and against ‘refugeeness’ is a key part of everyday life; Kyriakides conceptualizes creative resistance as confirmation of the eligibility to exist and the authority to act against the conditions of conflict and/or repression which displace and the conditions of localized oppression experienced in domains of resettlement. Kyriakides argues that while this duality creates a sympathetic convergence between ERS and RS scholarship, there is a critical tension and gap in need of resolution. Consequently, his research and graduate supervision explores this tension and gap by focusing on creative strategies of resistance.

Selected Research Grants since 2016

2023- 2026. Racisms, Refuge and Resistance: A Co-Created Comparative Analysis of the Experiences of Ethiopian and Syrian Refugees.
SSHRC: Partnership Development Grant.

2019-2021(2023): Bordering (Mis)Trust: The Impact of Refugee Reception Discourses on National Belonging
Funder: SSHRC Insight Grant

2021- 2022. Empowerment Squared Youth Council: Building a Platform for Newcomer Youth Engagement.
Funder: SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant.

2018-2025: Civil Society and the Global Refugee Regime
Funder: SSHRC Partnership Grant

2019-2023: Promoting the Transition to Postsecondary Education for African Refugee Youth in Canadian Schools
Funder: SSHRC Insight Grant.

2020-21: Brighter Futures: Equipping African Mothers with Refugee Backgrounds to Effectively Engage with Middle Schools
Funder: SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant

2017-2018: Social Mobilities App for Refuge, Trust and Transition
Funder: eOntario Digital Inclusion Fund

2016-2017: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Syrian Refugees in Northumberland County, Ontario
Funder: SSHRC Rapid Response program

2016 (Jan)- 2025 (Dec): Racialized Reception Contexts, Canada Research Chair in Citizenship, Social Justice and Ethno-Racialization
Funder: Canada Research Chairs Secretariat/SSHRC

Graduate and Research Assistant Supervision

Since 2016, Kyriakides has committed to the supervision of 21 graduate students (10 PhD and 11 MA) in the Departments of Sociology, Development Studies, Education, and Interdisciplinary Studies. Research grants have employed 24 research assistants (undergraduate, graduate and community-based) and 1 post-doctoral researcher.

Research Assistants Funded through Grant Supports since 2016

Gemechu Abeshu, SSHRC Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (International)
Rahel Gettu, Community Research Fellow (Ethiopia-Canada)
Maan Alhmidi, Community Research Fellow (Syria-Canada)
Bonsa Bekele, Community Research Fellow (Ethiopia-Canada)
Amal El Kordi, Community Research Fellow (Syria-Canada)
Faezeh Esmaeili, Graduate Research Assistant (Iran-Canada)
Ritika Tanotra, Graduate Research Assistant (India-Canada)
Paulie McDiermid, Graduate Research Assistant (Canada)
Dalia Al Usta, Community Research Fellow (Palestine-Canada)
Diala Ghniem, Community Research Fellow (United States)
Sana Azem, Community Research Fellow (United States)
Bayan Sbeini, Community Research Fellow (United States)
Lara Farah, Graduate Research Fellow (Jordan-Canada)
Sarah Masri, Graduate Research Fellow (Canada)
Mohammad Alani, Graduate Research Fellow (Iraq-Canada)
Meray Sadek, Graduate Research Fellow (Egypt-Canada)
Samia Daghestani, Community Research Fellow (United States)
Sumyia Daghestani, Community Research Fellow (United States)
Lubna Bajjali, Community Research Fellow (International)
Marwa Kobieh, Community Research Fellow and Community Co-ordinator (Canada)
Noheir Elgendy, Community Research Fellow (Canada)
Carlo Charles Handy, Graduate Research Fellow (Haiti-Canada)
Suzanne Meriden, Community Co-ordinator (United States)
Bayan Khatib, Community Co-ordinator (Canada)
Aleeza Arshad, Undergraduate Research Assistant (Canada)
Yara Al Tawil, Undergraduate Research Assistant (Canada)

Supervision and training aim to be flexible and responsive to individual needs. Post-Doctoral and graduate researchers undertake work in one or more of the following domains:

• Racisms and Anti-racisms
• Citizenship, Nationalism and the State
• Refugees and Immigration
• Resistance and Emancipatory Theory

Graduate Students Supervised (since 2016)

PhD

1. Paulie McDiermid. Title: Drag Across Borders: Negotiating 2SLGBTQ+ Refugee/Migrant Being and Belonging Through Drag Personas (successfully defended, September 2023)

2. Nadiya Ali. Title: The ‘Muslim Artistic Space’ Post-911: A Critical Muslim Theory Approach. (successfully defended, April 2022)

3. Dina Taha. Title: Marriage for Refuge: An Exploration of Syrian Women’s Survival Mechanisms in Egypt. (successfully defended, October 2021)

4. Beatrice Anane-Bediakoh. Title: Racialized City: Urban Black Space(s), Resistance and the Internal Colonies of the Canadian Metropolis (ABD)

5. Lara Farah. Title: Palestinian Refugee Resistance and the Negotiation of Citizenship and National Belonging in Jordan (2021-present)

6. Farnoush Mozafari. Title: The Trauma Trap: The Sociological Imagination of Refugeeness Understood through Traumatology and Feminism (ABD)

7. Sonia D'Angelo. Title: Angry Women Left Behind? Exploring Anti-Feminism and Racism in the Narratives of Right-Wing Women. (ABD)

8. Ritika Tanotra. Title: To Stay or Not to Stay: An Intersectional Approach into Locating Subjectivities and Trends Among Immigration and Refugee Board Adjudicators (2021-present)

9. Faezeh Esmaeili. Title (provisional): Iranian Political Asylum in Canada (2021-present)

MA
1. Dechen Tenzin (2020-2022) The Tibetan Resettlement Project: Negotiating Orientalist Scripts of Refuge as Persons of Self-Rescue

2. Nicholas Storr (2019- present) Orientalism, Social Change and Private Sponsorship (provisional title)

3. Anna-Lisa Caruana (2021-2022) Title: Current Sociological Debates and Issues in Racialized-Minority Access to Higher Education

4. Neela Imani (2019-present) The Racial Politics of Design: A Visual Information Aid in Formation

5. Lara Farah (2017-19) Title: Stateless Palestinian Gazan Youth in Jordan: An Investigation into the Subjective Negotiation of Poverty in Protracted Situations.

6. Ayan Osman (2017-19) Development Diaspora: The Identity and Agency of Somali Development Workers in Post-Conflict Settings.

7. Carlo Handy (2017-18) Title: Black Refuge: Racialization, Nationalism and the Reception of Haitian Refugees in Canada.

8. Alina Budhwani (2017-18) Title: Patterns of violence: How gender and race considerations shape conceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV).

9. Janice Phonepraseuth (2016-17) Title: Who We Are: A Study of Chinese Student Organizations across North-American University Campuses.

10. Hena Mehta (2016-17) From Prayer to Prejudice: Growing Saffronisation in New Religious Movements.

11. Sabeen Kazmi (2015-16) Title: Canadian-Muslim Women as Right Bearers: Experiences of Inclusion and Exclusion within the Canadian Legal System.

Graduate Courses Taught

Sociology of Racism
Sociology of Modernity
Sociology of Transnationalism and Migration

Publications (Selected)

Books

Christopher Kyriakides & Rodolfo D. Torres (2012) Race Defaced: Paradigms of Pessimism, Politics of Possibility. Stanford University Press.

Christopher Kyriakides & Rodolfo D. Torres (Forthcoming) Multicultural Apocalypse: Anti-Immigration at "History's End". Oxford University Press.

Christopher Kyriakides & Rodolfo D. Torres (Eds) (Forthcoming). Borders of Mass Destruction: Refugees, Racialization and National Belonging. Routledge.

Peer-reviewed publications

Kyriakides, C., Anderson, K., Bajjali, L., McLuhan, A. (2020) 'Splits in the Neighbourhood?: Negotiating Visibility in a Rural Reception Context'. In L. Hamilton, L. Veronis, M Walton-Roberts (Eds) A National Project: Canada’s Syrian Refugee Resettlement Experience. McGill-Queens Press.

Kyriakides, C., McLuhan, A., Anderson, K., Bajjali, L. (2020) Transactions of Worth in Refugee-Host Relations. In S. Labman & G. Cameron (Eds.). Strangers to Neighbours: Refugee Sponsorship in Context. McGill-Queen's University Press.

Kyriakides, C., McLuhan, A., Bajjali, L., Anderson, K., Elgendy, N., (2019) “(Mis)Trusted Contact: Resettlement Knowledge Assets and the Third Space of Refugee Reception” Refuge (special issue on private sponsorship).

Kyriakides, C., Taha, D, Handy Charles, C., Torres, R. (2019) The Racialized Refugee Regime. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees. Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 3-7.

Kyriakides, C., McLuhan, A., Anderson, K., Bajjali, L. (2019) Status Eligibilities: The Eligibility to Exist and Authority to Act in Refugee–Host Relations, Social Forces. 98(1), 279–302.

Kyriakides, C., Bajjali, L., McLuhan, A., Anderson, K. (2018) Beyond Refuge: Contested Orientalism and Persons of Self-Rescue. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 50(2), 59-78.

Kyriakides, C. (2017) ‘Words Don’t Come Easy: Al Jazeera’s Migrant-Refugee Distinction and the European Culture of (Mis)Trust’. Current Sociology, 65(7), 933-952. [journal of the International Sociological Association]

Kyriakides, C. (2016) ‘Class and Race’, In John Stone, R. Dennis, P. Rizova, A. Smith and X. Hou (Eds.), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism (pp.1-4).

Kyriakides, C. (2015) ‘Redressing Racism, Communicating Citizenship: State Legitimation Techniques in the Multicultural Metropolis.’ European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology. 2(1), 23-51. *Journal of the European Sociological Association.

Kyriakides, C. & Torres, R.D. (2015) ‘“Other Than Mexicans”, “Islamic Fascists” and the Transatlantic Regulation of Risky Subjects.’ Ethnicities, 15(2), 282-301.

Avraamidou, M. & Kyriakides, C. (2015) ‘Media Nationalism’. Global Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition 10(2), 1-21.

Kyriakides, C. (2012) ‘Post-Racial Pessimism: Therapolitics and the Antitopian Present.’
darkmatter Journal, Post-Racial Imaginaries special Issue 9.1, June (online)

Kyriakides, C. & Torres, R.D. (2012) ‘The Allure of Race: from New Lefts to New Times’, New Political Science, 34 (1), 55-80. *Journal of the American Political Science Association.

Kyriakides, C., Virdee, S., Modood, T. (2009) Racism, Muslims and the National Imagination. Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, 35(2): 289-308.

Kyriakides, C. (2008) Third Way Anti-Racism. Journal of Ethnic & Racial Studies, 31(3), 592-610.

Virdee, S., Kyriakides, C., Modood, T. (2006) Codes of Cultural Belonging: Racialised National Identities in a Multi-Ethnic Scottish Neighbourhood. Sociological Research Online

Kyriakides, C. & and Virdee, S. (2003) Migrant Labour, Racism and the British National Health Service. Journal of Ethnicity & Health, 8(4): 283-30.

Professional Activities and Affiliations

In 2016 Kyriakides joined the international advisory board of the journal Ethnicities and the Executive Committee of York's Centre for Refugee Studies. In 2018, he joined the Executive Board of CERIS (Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement). In 2019, he joined the editorial board of the journal Current Sociology. In 2021, Kyriakides co-lead (with Dr Gemechu Abeshu) the launch of the ‘racisms and refuge’ Executive sub-committee of the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University (which he currently convenes with Dr Gemechu Abeshu). In 2022, Kyriakides was invited to review for The National Killam Awards Program.

Kyriakdes has enjoyed active membership of the following:

1. Member, International Sociological Association.

• Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations

2. Member, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

3. Member, Middle East Studies Association

4. Member, International Communication Association

• Ethnicity and Race in Communication Division

• Intercultural Communication Division

• Political Communication Division

5. Member, European Communication Research and Education Association

• Diaspora, Migration and the Media Research Section

• International and Intercultural Communication Research Section
• Political Communication Research Section
• Philosophy of Communication Research Section
• Film Studies Section

6. Member. Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Cultural Studies

Kyriakides has reviewed papers for the following academic journals:

1. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

2. Journal of Ethnicity and Health

3. Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies

4. Ethnicities

5. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism

6. International Sociology

7. Current Sociology

8. Anthropological Theory

9. Communication, Culture and Critique

10. Bulletin of Historical Medicine

11. International Journal of Electronic Governance

12. New Political Science

13. Health Tomorrow: Interdiscplinarity and Internationality

14. Rochester Studies in Medical History book series

15. World Development

16. Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism

17. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

18. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research

Degrees

PhD, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow
BA (Hons.), Department of Sociology & Anthropology, University of Glasgow

Appointments

Faculty of Graduate Studies

Research Interests

Current Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Fall 2024	AP/SOCI3100 3.0	A	Special Topics	LECT

Upcoming Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Winter 2025	AP/SOCI4430 3.0	M	Human Displacement & Refugees: Global	SEMR